Google discontinues Nik Collection photo editing tool development

Google has officially announced that it is retiring its Nik Collection of photo editing tools, keeping them available to download but ceasing development and no longer issuing updates or bug fixes.

Snapped up by Google following its acquisition of Nik Software in 2012, the Nik Collection of image editing tools saw a gradual decrease in price from $500 down to around $149 (approximately £390 to £116 excluding taxes) before Google announced it was to make the entire suite of tools available for free download in March last year. Now, barely a year later, Google is making the move to cancel development of the Nik Collection, though it does not appear to be planning to take the software bundle off its website just yet.

'We have no plans to update the Collection or add new features over time,' a splash on the official website now reads. Although a link is provided to a help page, no additional explanation for the cancellation of development has been provided.

The Nik Collection of plugins was dealt a blow when Apple announced that it was to discontinue its own Aperture image editing tool, with which the Collection was compatible, leaving users looking to shell out cash for Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or Lightroom in order to continue to use the tools. Whether this has had an impact in Google's decision to discontinue the software is not known.

The Nik Collection joins other Google-owned services which have been discontinued over the years, including the Google Reader RSS platform and the Google Wave messaging platform. Users currently running the Nik Collection will be able to do so, though any changes to the software in which the plugins run which renders them incompatible will not be corrected.